Brazen betrayal

The elected members of India’s Parliament, the supreme legislative body of the nation, are figuring in the media prominently for all bad reasons over  the past two weeks. The daily routine of its two houses namely Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and Lok Sabha (House of the people) starting with the members trooping in and within minutes creating high decibel noisy scene leading to the Chairperson of Rajya Sabha and Speaker of Lok Sabha helplessly announcing adjournment of the Sessions to a later hour of the first, followed by adjournment to the next day doesn’t see the members in good light. Given the number of members in the present Lok Sabha as 545 and the country’s population as 135 crore, each member represents nearly 25 lakh people of the land on an average. This mass includes a considerable portion of the total headcount not entitled to vote in the polls on the count of age, thus rendering the concept of elected representatives untenable.

Considering all the rules of the regularly played national game of democratically electing members of various legislative bodies as laid down in the nation’s Constitution, crores of Indians are left wondering about who represents them in reality, primarily because they didn’t exercise their franchise in favour of members of the ruling class. In fact, these members have hijacked the logic governing representation of people.

Once the process of electing members to the various legislative bodies as their representatives is complete, the people forfeit their right to annul their choice for the next five-year period, unlike in some countries of Europe. Barring the sycophants of the members of these bodies with unbounded clout in the administration, the people have come to grief for having voted for them after witnessing the manner of their betrayal of trust of the electorate. The name of the game is to promise good governance on the eve of successive elections and vanish into thin air as it were after taking oath of serving people with discrimination on any count. The land’s various privileges continue to be appropriated by vested interests for the benefit of well-marked sections of society.

The nation’s people are aghast on seeing the TV telecast of scenes showing laughing faces of the Members of Parliament as they agitate in the wells of the Houses mindlessly squandering public money, for which shameful act they are handsomely paid. The land’s masses seem to be unconcerned by this brazen betrayal of trust by the MPs.